Ruckus in House over rise in swine flu cases in state

CHANDIGARH: The Haryana Vidhan Sabha witnessed ruckus on the concluding day of the budget session with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and opposition MLAS taking jibes at each other over the rising number of swine flu cases.

The discussion escalated after senior Congress MLA Karan Dalal spoke on his call attention motion and alleged that no one was attending to the swine flu patients at government hospitals and thus they were compelled to go to private hospitals only to be fleeced. He said that even former INLD MLA Ashok Kashyap had died of swine flu. Dalal went on to complain that the health officials acted irresponsibly and even his call was not attended.

Vij accused Dalal of misleading the House as, he held, the cause of death of Kashyap was yet not known. At this point, Congress MLA Kuldeep Sharma regretted that even the health minister was not in the know of the cause of Kashyap’s death.

The House plunged into din when Congress’ Uday Bhan, Sri Krishan Hooda and Jagbir Singh Malik started saying that the people had no faith in government health services and therefore went to private hospitals.

813 CASES, 14 DEATHS: VIJ

In his detailed reply to the House, Vij said that 813 cases of swine flu were reported between January 1 and February 17 while 14 deaths due to it were reported during the same period. Stating that the number of cases and deaths in the neighbouring states was much more, he said 222 isolation wards (79 in government hospitals and 143 in private hospitals) had been set up, 618 ventilators (41 at government hospital and 577 at private) were available.